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32 Useful AdWords Tips for Intermediate to Experienced Users

This is by no means a definitive list. Here are just some straight forward tips that I have learned over the years from experience with pay-per-click, AdWords in particular, as well techniques I have learned from gurusâ€™ books and newsletters.

I am not merely repeating a combined list. These are in my words, and in no particular order. I believe in all of these and am currently using or have used these techniques in the past for multiple client accounts.

Some of these might require more explanation, which you are welcome to ask for here.
Each are split into categories that should help for reference.

Improving CTR & Conversions

1.) Use the core/parent adgroup keyword three times in the ad text and display URL.

2.) Bid on all three match types for every keyword/keyphrase: broad, phrase, and exact.
(This will get you more clicks for your money).

3.) Bid higher on terms that have been converting well.

4.) If continual ad performance improvement is one of your goals, on campaign settings, change Ad Serving to â€œRotate: Show ads more evenlyâ€ from the default â€œOptimize: Show better performing ads more often. Then A/B split test your ads.

5.) Sign up for LowerYourBidPriceâ€™s Winner Alertâ€™s, letting you know which ad wins statistically without having to manually check every adgroup all day long.

12.) Use quotes & third party endorsements when factual and can be verified by Google. Ebert â€œBest movie 2007.â€ Oprah â€œMy top five book.â€

13.) From time to time use hyphens instead of commas as a slightly less common, and possibly more attention grabbing grammar tool.

14.) Use the words New and Free when true and appropriate.

Account Efficiency Techniques and Time Savers

15.) Download the AdWords Editor to copy and paste campaigns and adgroups easily (a must before doing #16)

16.) Separate & duplicate all campaigns and use one for Google + search partners and the other for the content network so you can see how each is doing from quick birdâ€™s eye view without having to drill into each campaign.

17.) Clean out account of keywords with zero impressions after two months.

18.) Cross channel all other ppc platforms in order to see clicks and conversions from Yahoo!, MSN, Ask, Miva, Business.com, etc, all from your AdWords interface.

19.) Download account info into a csv using the AdWords Editor and send it to Yahoo! and MSN so they can bulk upload it. Do this after thoroughly optimizing the account, so your other ppc platforms mirror the same structure and keywords as your efficient AdWords account.

**Yahoo! is doing this for free just for a limited time because of the platform change. They will accept bulk uploads regularly if you spend 6k a month for three months. MSN only offers you one chance to do this. Give them a call and get the details.

21.) For every campaign, duplicate it. Have one campaign that is manually geo-targeted for generic key terms/phrases and the other campaign for the same terms but with city and/or state added to the beginning or end. Example, one campaign has an adgroup for the key phrase Contract lawyer dallas which shows to all of US, another campaign adgroup had the generic key term contract lawyer, but will only show in Dallas.

22.) On the city/state stemmed keyword campaigns and adroups, use the state or city terms in the ad description text for more bolding and higher CTR.
Decreasing Cost Per Click

23.) If working with a larger budget, and you plan on constantly improving your ads, bid high to be #1 long enough to allow quality score to continually decrease your cpc.

25.) Instead of using the word â€œandâ€ use an ampersand (&). It takes up two less characters and gives you more room to sell.

26.) Use certain understood and acceptable abbreviations to save space.

Using AdWords As Market Research for SEO

27.) In the Reports tab, run a keyword report and look at high search impressions (not content targeting) on exact matches. Check for organic competition under those, and put your organic SEO efforts toward those keywords for even more clicks and conversions.

28.) Use a savvy analytics supplement to GA and study the raw query strings (GA does not show without special scripts and/or filters) that triggered your Google ads. Use the relevant buffering terms for added SEO as well as specific and relevant keywords for new ads.

29.) Keep ads running even when high on organic search for specific keywords. Having an organic listing and an ad has a 1 + 1 = 3 reinforcing each other and increasing the likelihood at least one will be clicked.

Miscellaneous No Brainers

30.) Set up at least two conversion codes. This is a no brainier and belongs on a beginnerâ€™s list. If you donâ€™t do this, you are flying blind or basing results on the â€œgut feelingâ€ email leads and incoming calls are coming from ads and web presence.

31.) Apply for pay-per-action and use it. Bid according to how
much you are currently paying for leads. If you donâ€™t know that, run a keyword report and find out how much you have to spend before a click turns into a lead. This should be simple if you have your conversion codes set up.

Treat adwords as if it were a business where you had to run at a profit or face bankruptcy.

Josiah

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Nice tip! This is true. If one figures out what is the highest price he/she can pay per click while still making a profit and never goes above (no matter how much their ego wants to take over to "beat out the other guy"). This # could be different for any one keyword, it could even be different for the match type of the same keyword.

This is why users should always know exactly how much a visitor, lead, contact submission, email, phone call is worth to them -- aka visitor value.
More Info on Visitor Value.

31) Why? I know what I'm doing, and I'd rather not give control of my campaign to a computer program.

Good post, though. A lot of useful tips for beginners who don't want to be beginners any more...

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Yeah, decided not to go into the exceptions, disclaimers, and too much info on each, or the post would be a mile long. Thank you very much for adding, affirming, and explaining more to the community on these tips.

If you've got the same search query for all three matches (broad, phrase, exact), I'll bet most of the cheaper clicks come from phrase match.

Check it out.

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You know it! : ) I still don't want to miss out on the broad and exact matches if they are converting well enough and still making a profit for my clients. Oddly, exact match is usually the most expensive too.

You know it! : ) I still don't want to miss out on the broad and exact matches if they are converting well enough and still making a profit for my clients. Oddly, exact match is usually the most expensive too.

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Exact match is usually more expensive: I agree with that...
But broad match means that more of negative keywords also needs to be added.

Exact match is usually more expensive: I agree with that...
But broad match means that more of negative keywords also needs to be added.

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You're right about that too. Always mind your raw query strings and add your negative keywords regularly for those broad matched terms. Don't trust what Google considers an "expanded match" that triggers your ads. Unfortunately, the best way to get your negative keywords is after you have already paid for it and can see the click. That is, after always starting off by placing the obvious ones.